


The Last Thousand Days, The First Ten

by skiron



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pre-Kerberos Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24014557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiron/pseuds/skiron
Summary: Years before and days after one of the defining moments of Adam's life.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	The Last Thousand Days, The First Ten

_Day 1000_

He catches sight of himself in the mirror and huffs. His hair is a mess again, sticking out at at least three different angles. As if it’s not enough that he barely looks older than the cadets he teaches. Adam reaches up to fix it until it lies reasonably flat again. Professional. Capable. There we go. 

Ten minutes later he’s back working at his desk, when he hears the door open behind him.

“I need at least another half hour, Takashi,” he says quietly, not looking up as he hears the footsteps approaching.

“No problem.” Shiro’s hand passes through Adam’s hair absently as he makes his way over to the kitchen island, and it’s suddenly difficult to focus on the simulator design that had been so compelling mere moments before. “I’ll just put together lunch.” 

“Don’t burn anything,” Adam manages, dragging his mind back to work.

***

_Day 635_

Saturday afternoon planning has become a standing weekly appointment in their quarters. Adam sits at his desk, his materials in neat stacks in front of him as he wrestles out new scenarios and activities for the cadets . If it’s a good day, Shiro sits on the floor nearby, piles of papers scattered around him, making a kind of order out of the seeming chaos. On the bad days, he lounges on the couch, a screen propped up on his chest at the right angle for him to see, though he prefers the floor. It’s better to be closer together, so they can consult each other intermittently. 

“Why won’t these nodes align…?” Adam murmurs softly. He’s lucky; today is a good day. Shiro cranes his neck to look up at the model on the desk. 

“You’ve got them switched,” he says, standing up. Shiro leans against the back of the chair and gestures toward the nodes. “See? That one’s supposed to be southwest.” 

“Damn, you’re right.” 

“Of course I am.” Shiro grins and ruffles Adam’s hair before sitting back down. Adam lifts a hand to fix it, then stops, lowers it, and goes back to work. 

***

_Day 270_

“Do you wonder what it’ll be like, marriage?”

They’re both on the couch, where Shiro has tucked himself into the corner, Adam leaning back against his chest with a book propped open in one hand. 

Adam turns his head slightly so his cheek is pressed against Shiro’s ribcage, listening to the heart that beats there. He shifts his book so he can see it from this position just as well. 

“Oh, I imagine it’ll be something like this.” Shiro chuckles, and Adam can feel it reverberate through his chest.

They stay like that for a long time, Adam finally getting up to brush his teeth before a lunch meeting that had seemed like such a good idea when they scheduled it, but now seems entirely unnecessary.

He catches sight of himself in the mirror and grins. His hair is pointing everywhere it shouldn’t be and nowhere that it should. He leaves it like that. It’s the weekend anyway. 

***

_Day 150_

Adam wakes and scrubs a hand over his eyes, half reaches over to the other side of the bed before he remembers. Right. 

_“If you decide to go, don’t expect me to be here when you get back.”_ His own voice sounds sharp and clipped in his mind. 

The words feel foreign now, as if he could be anywhere but here when _here_ is where he knows Shiro will return. Not that he should be leaving in the first place. Not like this. Not for so long. Not so far -- 

Tears prick the back of his eyes, a combination of frustration and hurt, and he sits up suddenly, shaking his head a bit to focus on the moment at hand. He has to find Shiro. Has to apologize. Has to make him listen. Has to know that they both know he didn’t mean it, that he could never mean it. Sure he’s angry, sure this seems senseless, but he wouldn’t -- not like _that_ \-- 

The clock reads 6:28, and seeing it is enough to jolt him into action. Seven o’clock departure time. Half an hour before he won’t see him again for at least a year. Won’t get a chance to explain, won’t get a chance to fix it -- that’s too long. Adam grabs his glasses off the bedside table and stumbles to the bathroom on half-asleep legs. 

He catches sight of himself in the mirror and frowns. If he’s going to apologize, he should probably make some kind of effort, right? He splashes some water on his face and uses his damp hands to get his hair into something resembling order, then replaces his glasses. Better. He’s still in sweatpants and a t-shirt, but it’ll have to do. The mission leaves in twenty minutes. 

He skids to a halt in front of the Kerberos mission’s assigned launch bay at five minutes to seven, stops and takes a deep breath. Something’s wrong. There are no cadets scurrying around helping with final preparations. No Sam Holt calmly giving instructions. Most importantly, no Shiro. 

“They left about ten minutes ahead of schedule.” The young woman leaning against the wall to his left is a launch tech, judging by her uniform. “Command was pretty glad to clear the bay early, seems like.” 

Adam manages something that sounds vaguely like an acknowledgement. His eyes quickly shift back to the massive bay door, which is firmly shut in a way that feels all too final. The launch tech clears her throat. 

“Don’t stress, Weismann. You’ll see him soon enough.” Adam can’t speak. He nods at the tech, just so she won’t be left waiting for a response, and she shifts back onto her feet to walk away. 

*** 

_Day 1_

“Weismann,” says a gruff voice from the officer’s lounge as he’s passing by on his way to class. “You’d better come see this.” He supposes he doesn’t have to be that early today -- not much to set up for a quick talk on fuel allocation -- so he turns. The lounge holds nearly a dozen people, even though it’s still before nine in the morning, and he’s surprised to see through the doorway that Shiro’s face is up on the screen, along with pictures of Sam and Matt Holt, all three looking serious in uniform for their official garrison photos. 

As he steps into the lounge, he can read the chyron below the pictures, and all thoughts of fuel allocation are lost. The clipboard he’s holding falls, hitting his foot with enough force that it will definitely bruise, even through his boots, but he doesn’t notice. 

“Weismann?” The older officer that first called him in is looking at him, concerned etched into the wrinkles appearing in his forehead. “You going to be alright?” There’s a rushing in his ears, in his head. He can’t breathe. Is he breathing? Everyone is too close. When did everyone get so close. He needs to get out of here. He turns. Moves. The clipboard stays on the floor. 

With every step he hears the words from the chyron echoing through the static that seems to be filling his brain. _Missing, presumed dead._ Out of the officers’ lounge. _Missing, presumed dead._ Into the bathroom. _Missing._ Closes the door. _Presumed._ Rests his forehead against the cold tile wall. _Dead._

***

_Day 4_

“So, what I’m saying is that --” Iverson’s voice sounds intensely uncomfortable “-- well, we’re sorry, Weismann. You should have been notified.” 

“No problem,” he says quietly, still looking down at his hands. He can feel his nails dragging slightly on his thumb as he keeps curling and uncurling his fingers. At least that he can feel. 

***

_Day 10_

He catches sight of himself in the mirror and sees that his eyes behind his glasses look hollow, empty. He tries to focus them, tries to see himself in his reflection like he normally would, but there’s something so wrong about it now. The face in the mirror is him, he knows that, knows it even as he’s convinced it can’t be real. If he’s standing here, if he’s real, then that means everything else is real. And that...no. 

His own stare is too much, and Adam’s eyes drift up to his hair. It’s unruffled, stoically neat along the edges, and suddenly he can’t stand it. _If Takashi were here_ \-- he stops the thought before it can go too far, cutting off the voice in his head by reaching up and running his fingers through his hair. Better, he thinks, but that’s followed quickly by the understanding that it’s not enough. 

He runs his fingers through his hair again and again, both hands, watching it spread up and out in a million different directions until he looks like some caricature of a mad scientist, until every strand is pointing at its own angle, and it’s not enough, it’s not better, it’s not -- he stops, suddenly, as his vision blurs. Blinks angrily. Looks into the mirror again as the tears run down his cheeks. It’s not enough. Of course it’s not. 

The next morning he goes out and buys his own clippers. 

No one comments on it openly, but they talk about it amongst themselves, in hushed tones, and when they’re sure he isn’t near enough to overhear. That’s how it is with grief, they tell each other. Everyone deals with it in different ways. Some people hold onto every last memory they have. Some people take leave to have time alone. Some people work even harder to try to forget. Adam Weismann cuts his hair and doesn’t talk about it. It could be worse, they say. Hair grows back.

**Author's Note:**

> All possible thanks to [lovelylessie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLessie/pseuds/LovelyLessie) for...gosh, a lot. But for now, mostly for reading this fic in its many iterations before this one, and for giving those lines about grief that made me really, really want to write this.


End file.
